When looking at the current developments within IT the focus of testing is getting to be more and more on the business-logic and functionality rather than user-flows. More and more systems are delivered as API-based systems or service oriented architectures where the UI, or front-end, is only to a lesser extend important. UI’s can be put live into the world a lot easier, with béta testing, testing in production etc. Whereas the business-logic of an application, as well as the API’s are increasingly becoming more and more important, since that is where the actual value of most applications is.

What does this mean for traditional testers? There already is a lot of talk about the changing role of testmanagers and coordinators in the future, what with Agile and things. But I believe the role of the ‘traditional functional tester’ will also lessen.

More and more testing will be pulled into the “technical” side of software, so into the services and API testing spheres, running functional tests through the API rather than through the user interface. This will result in testers, rather than being able to click their way through a user interface, will need to get used to working their ways through systems architectures and learn how to quickly and easily manipulate XML and other formats over a wide variety of protocols from one system to another. They will need to learn how to set up a full end to end chain and troubleshoot within this chain whenever an issue seems to appear.

Out of all the traditional functional testers I personally know, I am not sure what percentage will be able to make this transition, either due to lack of technical insight and understanding or to a simple lack of willingness to invest the time to learn some extra technical skills.

There are of course courses and trainings for testers to gain knowledge in the technical side of software testing, but whether that is enough.. I personally doubt it.
To be or become a good tester with technical knowledge and skills you will need to not only have an understanding of how systems are built up, but also a base understanding of programming. In order to gain these skills I believe more than formal training is required, you need to be willing to invest some extra time in it by home studying these concepts, practicing with them and keeping up with new technologies which might come your way sooner than you’d think.